Field
This field is generally related to managing data related to network elements in a telecommunications network.
Background
Modern communications carriers operate local, regional, and nationwide networks to provide connectivity to customers. These networks are built with a variety of equipment to perform various tasks, and such equipment may be manufactured by multiple vendors. Each piece of equipment may be complex enough to handle hundreds or thousands of simultaneous connections, and different pieces of equipment may be widely dispersed across a region. Wireless base stations, for example, are geographically distributed across a city to optimize coverage and efficiency. Customer expectations of network availability, given such distribution, complexity, and heterogeneity of equipment, mandates fast detection and accurate diagnosis of network issues that may arise.
In order to ensure network reliability, the data used to define a complex communications network must be consistent among network planners, service providers, and vendors. Data used by these parties may be largely unstructured or dissimilarly formatted. Exchange of data between parties may require manual entry of data from one system or document to another. This manual process is error prone, and fast detection of inconsistencies between data sets, as well as the source of inconsistencies, can aid in ensuring reliability of the network.
When network issues arise, a network operator may be required to search through various network-related data in hopes of identifying the source of the issue. Due to the complexity of current communications networks, manual detection of inconsistencies among varyingly structured or unstructured data from multiple parties is not viable to ensure desired network availability. Therefore, a solution is needed that allows for varyingly structured or unstructured network-related data to be automatically processed in a consistent and efficient manner.